


A Certain Kind of Sadness

by Elphachel



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-06
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2019-04-19 05:58:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14230812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elphachel/pseuds/Elphachel
Summary: Sara deals with the aftermath of Mallus's possession of her, while Ava tries to protect her from her own guilt and fears.Takes place at the end of 3x15. Alternate ending because I'm in denial of the breakup (please let my gays be happy).





	A Certain Kind of Sadness

**Author's Note:**

> Hi to anyone who used to read my work! I'm going to give a kinda comprehensive note about why I've been missing for so long at the end, so skip to the end notes if you want to know why I disappeared and why I abandoned my other fic. If you're new (or if you don't care, which: fair enough), enjoy! Hopefully I'll be able to post more frequently!
> 
> ~ Elphachel

Sara stared stone-faced at the wall in front of her. Images from the day ran through her mind: her throwing Wally across the room, punching Zari until she lay, still and quiet, hurting Mick and Amaya until they had no choice but to run, Amaya on a nearly-broken leg. These scenes surrounded her, playing in front of her eyes, new memories slowly joining them. She watched as she murdered her way through life, leaving an immeasurable path of death and devastation in her wake. Today she could blame on Mallus, but everything else? Not all of it had been him. She watched in horror as nightmarish futures danced in front of her, as she murdered the Legends, murdered Oliver, murdered Ava….

Sara felt tears welling up in her eyes. She knew these were just waking nightmares, and yet they hurt as if they were real. She screwed her eyes shut as she sat on the bed, pressing her closed fists roughly against her eyelids in an effort to block the visions, but they kept on coming. 

Her mind showed her Ava, bloody, beaten, a knife through her heart, put there by Sara, the woman who had stolen her heart not so long ago. Ava turned to Sara, staring directly into her eyes, blood trickling down her face and whispered the words Sara feared the most:  
“You did this to me. You’re a monster, Sara. You can pretend to be human all you want, but underneath it all, you’re just a monster.” Sara watched in horror as Ava’s head fell back against the floor, limp, her face blank.

“Ava!” Sara screamed, unsure if this was nightmare or reality. “Ava!” Sara felt as if her insides were trying to rip free of her body as she tore at her skin, desperate to rip it off, to stop feeling this pain, this terror, no matter the cost.

Ava came running in, worry etched across her face.  
“Sara, what’s wrong!?” Ava wrapped her arms around Sara’s shaking body, pulling her close and pressing gentle kisses to her forehead, desperate to calm the hysterical woman. “Sara, it’s okay! Shhh, I’m here now. Everything’s okay.”

Sara buried her head in Ava’s shoulder, sobs wracking her body. The normally stone-faced captain cried until she had nothing left in her, until her throat was dry and her head felt as though it was being crushed. She cried as the images kept coming, as she watched the woman she loved, the very woman comforting her, die again and again, always at her hand.  
‘If she knew what was in my soul, she wouldn’t love me, let alone hold me like this,’ Sara thought bitterly. A fresh wave of pain engulfed her at the thought and she gasped for breath, unable to breathe and not sure if she wanted to anymore. Ava held her throughout it all, muttering gentle words to her broken girlfriend, tears leaking out of her own eyes at Sara’s pain.

The two stayed this way for some time. Slowly, Sara’s sobs became slower, until she was spent, her face pressed against Ava’s wet shoulder as she let out shuddering, uneven breaths.  
“I’m sorry,” she whispered brokenly, starting to pull free of Ava’s embrace. “I’m so sorry, please, just… go. This isn’t your problem.”  
Ava stared down at her.  
“Sara,” she started, pausing for a second to wipe at her own tears, “Sara, of course this is my problem. Talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong. I know it’s been a hard day; don’t make it harder by shutting me out.” She stroked Sara’s head gently as she spoke, pulling her fingers through her hair.

Sara let out a sigh.  
“I just can’t stop thinking… what if I hadn’t stopped? What if I’d just kept going? Everyone keeps saying that what happened today wasn’t me, but it was. I’m a monster, Ava. What happens when I can’t stop the monster anymore?” Sara paused. “I don’t want to hurt you.” Her voice cracked as she spoke, more tears running down her face as she turned to look at Ava. She placed a hand on Ava’s cheek. “I keep seeing you dead. Every time I close my eyes, I kill you. Mollus takes control, and I break you. Again, and again, and again, over and over, and there’s nothing I can do. Just like today, I’m a prisoner in my own body, but this time I’m also the executioner.” Sara fell silent for a moment as she closed her eyes. Her hand slipped from Ava’s face. “How can we be together if at any moment I could kill you? How could you ever trust me? How could I live with myself if I did?”

Ava watched her, her face twisted into a mask of grief. How could Sara think she didn’t trust her, didn’t love her? At no point in the day had she been worried for her own safety: it had only been Sara she had thought of. She ached to hold her, to kiss her, to do whatever she could to take this weight away from Sara, even if only for a moment, but knew that the affection might hurt more than it would help. Instead she took Sara’s hand in her own and squeezed it tightly. 

“Sara,” Ava started, “you’re right. Mallus? He’s a part of you. As much as it kills me that you have to go through this, that’s not something we can escape right now.” Ava cupped Sara’s chin gently and pulled her face up to look into her eyes. “You know what, though? You’re also wrong. Because Mallus, he’s a part of you, but that doesn’t make you a monster. That makes you the victim of a monster. You didn’t hurt anyone today: he did. Don’t blame yourself for what your literal inner demon does. It’s not your fault. It never will be. I love you so much Sara Lance. Whether there’s a demon in you or not, I love you, and I always will. You think you can get rid of me just because you have a dark side? Well get used to me, because it will take so much more than that.”

Sara stared at Ava, a sad hopefulness in her eyes. They stayed that way for a second, before Sara pulled Ava into a tight embrace, tears once again leaking from her swollen, red eyes.  
“I love you too, Ava. So so much.” Ava could feel the tears on her back, could hear the love-tinged sadness in her words. She pulled back from the embrace.  
“I’m sorry Sara, I’m no good at making people feel better and now I’ve made you even more upset. I always do emotions wrong, and-“

“Shh,” Sara cut off her words, “you did everything right.” She pulled Ava back into the embrace, and they stayed that way, holding each other up, until finally Sara crawled under the covers, Ava pressed against her back as she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. Once Sara’s breathing evened out, Ava pressed a soft kiss to the woman’s neck, tucking her hair gently behind her ear. Then she wrapped an arm around her girlfriend and allowed herself to slowly drift into sleep, the warmth of Sara’s body a reminder of all that she loved.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi again! This is going to get really personal, but I wanted to share because I felt bad about leaving my account for so long, especially since people seemed to enjoy my work! You do not have to read this: it does get very dark, so take that as fair warning.
> 
> So, if you're reading this, you probably read my old fanfics and then realised that I suddenly disappeared with a weird chapter at the end of my last fic saying that my writing style had changed and that I had abandoned the fic. I honestly didn't think I would ever write another fic after that one. Even then, despite saying I was better, I was struggling a lot. I still am. I have been suffering from severe depression and anxiety for around 6 years now, and over the past few years it has only gotten worse. As high school got more and more intense, I felt a greater need to be perfect at everything, and since that is impossible, I constantly felt that I was failing myself and everyone around me. The real reason why I stopped writing is because everything I wrote felt awful. I felt like I would be letting down the people who enjoyed my writing if I posted anything I had written, and then it started to feel like I couldn't post anything new if I still had that old unfinished fic hanging over my head. I know it sounds stupid, but for the past few years practically everything has felt stressful to me, and it turned this hobby that I loved into something that made me want to curl up and hide.  
> Finally last year, after several years of writing nothing apart from school work, I decided to write a play for my school. It was my first time creating a completely new piece of writing that was going to be presented to the public, and for the first time in many years, I created something that I was proud of. After that play, I shifted my focus back to school work, but stories once again began to fill my mind. I decided to finally put that old fic to bed, admitting that I would never finish it, knowing that it could never be what I wanted it to be. It would always be impossible to reconcile the perfection that I wanted with writings that I now saw many flaws with (needless to say, 18 year old me has noticed that 15 year old me took this way too seriously, and was not good enough to!). I considered beginning a new account under a new name and abandoning my old fics, thus allowing myself to move on from what I felt was a reminder of a bad period, but ultimately decided not to. Even when I posted that note on the abandoned fic, I was not sure I would come back to writing. Then I started uni, and suddenly I had a laptop with me all the time and endless hours to write in. I began writing again, first editing old works, and then moving on to new writings. This was one I was inspired to write after seeing the ending of 3x15 and realising that I could identify strongly with Sara's feelings of not being good enough for Ava, of being a danger to her and knowing that romance between them could only lead to pain and heartbreak. In terms of those feelings, I felt Sara and I were very similar (although I'm not possessed by a demon). Normally that would lead me to write angst with no happy ending. The story I wrote would say the same but would end with the break-up still happening, or with Sara attempting to take her own life to escape from the torture of possession. This time, however, I chose to give both Sara and, by extension, myself, the bittersweet ending that is less dramatic and so much nicer. I like to think that the ending of this fic reflects how I have changed as a person: I am not in the same endless pit of despair that I have been in for so long, but I'm not out of it either. I am somehow both in and out of it at once.  
> I know I've been super dramatic, and if anyone has stuck with this note this long, thanks! I really hope you enjoy the fic, and I hope that I don't prove myself a liar in saying that I can't wait to continue to create new works for you. Thank you for reading.  
> ~ Elphachel


End file.
